by Alex Dylan
“Where’ve you been then? I’d given up on you.”
“So I heard. Who’s the lucky man? Nick Storey, is it?”
Two high spots of colour appeared on her cheeks. She caught sight of the posy in his hands. “Is a bunch of meadow flowers all you’re going to offer to woo me? Sorry, love, but I count myself worth more than that,” she sniffed.
“Ah Letty,” Heughan teased, “I’ve still got a smile and a song for you.”
She pulled the corners of her mouth down, “Mebbe so but Sal’ and the Spaniard say you can’t afford me. So if that’s all, I’ll take my leave of you and thank you to stop wasting my time.”
Time-wasting. Picking flowers for a woman he could never have. Suddenly angry with Rodrigues again, Heughan impulsively decided that he had other plans. As Lettice turned to leave, Heughan whirled her into him and kissed her again, dragged his mouth to her over-spilling breasts and groaned with pleasure. He tossed the flowers into a corner while he fumbled Lettice’s stays with one hand, lifting her skirts to rub her leg with the other; he got nowhere fast in either direction. He gave up and kissed her some more. The horse in the next stall turned against the wooden partition, bumping against the wood panels. He banged with the flat of his fist, answering: go away. Give me some time to myself. “Be my Queen of the May, Letty, and who knows what’ll be in it for you.”
She pushed him away with a taunting laugh, a harsh sound from her pretty face. “The man who wants the keep of me would need deep pockets. You’ve got nothing but that Sim hasn’t taken from you.”
“Fortunes change, lass. This time tomorrow, I might offer more. A throne or a castle. Would that suit you?”
Her eyes glittered as she began to undo her own stays and guided his hands to her. Heughan looked questioningly at her. “I thought you were spoken for?”
“Where’d you hear that? Fortunes change and you might offer more, is what I heard.”
Heughan sighed happily at her collusion and eased her gently backwards onto a conveniently placed mound of soft meadow hay.
The dusk had lengthened when Heughan leaned across her to take his leave. Lettice had closed her eyes, anticipating a parting kiss, but Heughan had simply retrieved the crushed posy from behind her head. Lettice pretended to be preoccupied with dressing as she watched Heughan transform himself before her eyes. His rough stubble has been expertly scraped off to leave a fashionably-trimmed beard and when he’d slicked back his hair, he looked very different to the rough reiver who’d bedded her. With his usual clothes bundled into a sack and shoved in a corner, the Heughan who now strode confidently across the courtyard away from her and towards the flaming torches of De Ireby’s Tower was a noble she had never met, but she liked the look of him. As she adjusted her bodice, she wondered where he’d acquired his courtly costume for the evening and what other secrets Heughan had.
Heughan held back until a large party rode through the portcullis, surreptitiously joining the group as they dismounted with noisy fussiness. He managed to insert himself amongst them and exchange pleasantries as they made their way up the narrow wooden stairs together to the small hall in De Ireby’s Tower beyond the Outer Gatehouse. It lacked the grandeur of the Great Hall in the Keep, but tonight’s gathering was meant to be intimate, there would only be a hundred or so.
The garlands he had seen earlier now hung uncertainly about the uneven walls, trying to drape themselves nonchalantly and look intentional. They didn’t want to be mistaken for common ivy that had scrambled in from the gutters amidst the general neglect that characterised ancient castles. Heughan empathised. Fires crackled in every hearth, filling the series of chambered rooms with warm resin fragrances. The shutters of the minstrels’ gallery were opened wide. The Castle was relaxed, inviting invasion. It made Heughan nervous. He fought down the impulse to tap his sword hand on his thigh and warm the muscles, readying for action, looking for the best defensive corner, the nearest staircase.
Rodrigues was already in place, as he had promised, and came forward with affable greeting when he saw Heughan’s party, scooping him into the throng.
“Where’s Howard?” Heughan asked, searching under a barnyard of fancy hats for a familiar face. Rodrigues shrugged. “He’ll be with our royal visitors, I expect. You remembered the flowers?”
Heughan waved the nosegay at him in exasperation and grabbed a goblet from a passing page.
Thirsty after his long day, he took a large swig of the wine and turned to Rodrigues in surprise. “This is ours?” he said, “The quality stuff, from France?”
“Everyman has his price,” said Rodrigues glumly. “Middlemore’s is unreasonably high but do I have a choice?”
“No, I guess not,” said Heughan and drank some more.
“Did you find out where they stored it…?” Rodrigues began but was cut off as a fanfare of trumpets made them turn.
Ross and the royal party had arrived at last. Pages gathered up armfuls of woven flowers, pleating the great red arras, holding it aside to admit the Lord Warden. The tapestry was a very fine piece from the Low Countries and wouldn’t have been out of place in a royal palace. In the centre of it, a virginal pale lady stood in garden of a hundred modest flowers; daisies, strawberries, plantains, the decorative, the edible and healer’s herbs intermingled. A lion and a unicorn flanked her, rearing up on their hind legs to hold banners for her. As the tapestry was released and swung to rest, the animals advanced to intimacy and then retreated discretely, dancing in a beastly threesome backwards and forwards.
Heughan scanned the new arrivals eagerly. Ross was accompanied by an elfin girl, who tripped daintily alongside him, small marmoreal fingers lightly possessive against the blue velvet bulk of his slashed doublet. On his other side stalked a tall ascetic cleric, whose sleekly groomed red-gold hair and neatly pointed beard marked him as a man of discernment. He presented elegant high cheekbones as he took time to note the details of his surroundings, pausing to murmur some enquiry to Melisande. They turned inwards to each other as though they might kiss, their attention on the cavorting animals. He said something to make her laugh. Heughan jealously wondered what? Melisande did not strike him as the sort of woman to laugh frivolously. The women looked glorious arrayed in fine silks and jewels. Ross’s escort was positively angelic with her plaited white blonde hair and pale-blue gown.
Heughan wasn’t quite sure what words he would have chosen to described Melisande. ‘Diabolic temptresses’ sprung to his mind. She was a contrast with her dark looks, burnished hair upswept, elaborately coiled on her head like Medusa’s serpents wrangled under control. Her tightly-laced gown of green embroidered velvet, samite and elaborate embellishment of seed pearls confirmed what he had earlier noticed: she had a very nice bosom.
Rodrigues chuckled darkly beside him. “Roll up your tongue, lad, before someone stands on it and stop drooling. Did I not tell you she would have a lovely new gown from that silk?”
The small party mingled their way through the guests, exchanging pleasantries, making introductions, until they reached the guild members, and Master Mason Jeffrie Nortbie with his shrewish wife. Ruth Nortbie was dolorous in black wool with a trim white falling band below a permanent sneer. They were old adversaries and Melisande looked elsewhere for a quick distraction. She spotted Heughan and arched one prurient eyebrow as she looked over his newly acquired finery, pricing him in his unaccustomed luxury. He had either been busy or working hard. He was svelte in velvet so darkly blue that it seemed to swallow any light that fell on it, like the cold depths of the ocean dousing the stars’ reflections. Affinity with water, she assessed. A good portent for her. Melisande graced him with a brief smile in spite of his affected disdain.
Jeffrie had taken it upon himself to act as spokesman for the rest of the guild masters, “Of course, you are acquainted with Don Rodrigues…” Curtsey. Bow. Just so. “Please permit me to introduce Master Corwin…” All so polite, as though they really didn’t know each other’s dubious dealings, everyone
pretending to be someone they were not. Melisande kept a straight face and curtseyed with appropriate decorum. Heughan remembered to produce his manners and bowed in return before offering his, slightly squashed, posy to her as courtesy required. Her hesitancy to accept put him on his guard straightaway. He knew she would not miss the opportunity to expose any gaffe he made.
Attack being the best form of defence, he started, “I was told these are your favourite flowers, my lady,” with a Judas’s look at Rodrigues, who was already melting inconspicuously away behind a convenient wall.
Melisande interpreted his glance. She made a pretence of sniffing the flowers tentatively, though she knew them all by sight.
“This is indeed a charming posy,” she replied. “A countryman’s choice, and indeed, they would be my favourite…”
He bowed too prematurely in acknowledgement of her approval and had nearly allowed himself to relax and breathe when she slipped the cut in deftly before he could stand,
“…for seasoning tonight’s lamb; for you have given me rosemary, thyme and wood sorrel.”
There was a ripple of tittering, quickly stifled as he righted himself, smoothing his hair back into place to cover the struggle he was having as he adjusted an unfamiliarly congenial smile of polite amusement into place.
He was quite sure Melisande hadn’t missed a heartbeat. She fingered an umbrella of tiny white star flowers whilst waiting for him to catch up. “This one, valerian, would make us all sleepy long before the revels. Or is that your plan, Master Corwin?” she fluttered her eyelashes coquettishly, “to persuade me to be your Queen of the May before I’ve a chance to judge your fancy footwork?”
There was sudden intake of breath from Ruth Nortbie, who grimaced as though she had sucked on a sour plum.
“The godly should have nothing to do with pagan customs. I myself could not countenance the impropriety of such lewdness and frivolity,” she said with dour rectitude, “being a sober and dutifully married woman.” She curtseyed with the smallest of movements, which was much too shallow to lessen the insult.
Melisande sparked flintily. “You have perhaps forgotten that I am a widow, Mistress Nortbie. I never do. But it would be indulgent in the extreme to mourn in perpetuity, not to say, prideful, to seek to impose my own misery on others. We can’t all wear black forever. It is a most unforgiving shade, which quite stifles entertainment. Surely, we should be celebrating joyously for our royal guests?”
“Would it not be more appropriate to give thanks prayerfully? There are many who find it neither burden nor misery to behave in accordance with the Scriptures. As to dress, sombre colours are most decorous, reminding us all of the solemnity of marriage vows, of the duty we owe not only to our husbands but all God’s anointed who deserve our fealty.”
Jeffrie fiddled nervously with the ruff at his neck, where his golden chain of office seemed to have become suddenly and unbearably tight. He was turning a patchy bruised red like unwashed wool steeping in madder root. Matrimony could be quite scalding, Heughan thought.
Melisande smothered her own spite to meet Ruth with a face devoid of any readable expression.
“The company gathered tonight is here because their loyalty is not questioned. I should trust that I am included. As a widow, I lack both my husband and a lord to guide me; therefore, I must make my own decisions and behave in accordance as I see fit.” She couldn’t resist adding, “Though I am fortunate to have the benefit of my noble Lord Middlemore, who is husband enough for anyone who’ll have him.”
Across the room, Phillice had overheard a part of the conversation and diffused the awkwardness of the implied censure by clapping her hands and piping up, “Oh but I adore dancing! Do you dance, Master Corwin?” she asked, turning huge lilac eyes on Heughan. “Oh, do say that you do!”
“Yes, do say that you do,” lisped Melisande in an appalling parody, and was then forced to babble on, aware that she had become the unwitting focus of attention.
“Phillice and I love the tassel dance, don’t we? Though Mistress Nortbie may wish to forbid it to us,” she added, looking downcast.
Heughan could see that although she hung her head modestly, her eyes were glittering with mischief as she risked cocking a look askance at him under her lashes.
“Nonsense!” boomed Ross, oblivious to the feminine treachery lurking in the undercurrents. He kissed Phillice’s hands to his lips. “What is May Day without dancing?”
Rodrigues appeared at Heughan’s elbow and under the guise of a bow, managed to steer him away before the conflict between the women threatened to escalate. Melisande and Ruth were glaring like two cats assessing the measure of each other before a hissing and clawing spat. Melisande twitched her skirt train and stalked away with a victor’s arrogance. She held everything proud and high; her head, her nose, her shoulders, and if she had a tail under her skirts, that too.
“Now look at what you’ve started. I hope you know what you’re doing, lad,” Rodrigues said, making it perfectly clear that he thought Heughan didn’t have the slightest idea what he had let himself in for.
Heughan grinned confidently. “I can dance a jig as neat as the next man,” he said. “What of it?”
A page approached them. Rodrigues took the silken cord he proffered and hung it about Heughan’s waist, taking his sword belt in exchange.
“Yes, but the tassel dance?”
He looked down and Heughan followed his gaze. Suspended from the cord about his waist, and level with his groin, hung a large and robust golden tassel.
“Uuumm…?” started Heughan enquiringly.
“Fancy footwork, lad. Guard your tassel well or you might find your own twig and berries getting slightly snapped. And then you won’t be jigging anyone,” laughed Rodrigues, turning a bewildered Heughan onto the dance floor.
Suddenly, Melisande was on one side and Phillice on the other and they were following similar trios in a stately pavane. Heughan bluffed his way through, watching the couples in front and to his side carefully, perusing why Ruth could find this pedestrian activity so objectionable. He turned to Phillice as he sprung onto the balls of his feet in a bouncing step, she mirroring him. Then he had to turn to Melisande to do the same.
“Why is it called the tassel dance?” he risked.
She smiled spitefully, “Because of this,” she said, tapping her toe on the floor and kicking high to catch the tassel and set it swinging.
Heughan winced involuntarily.
Phillice sniggered. “You are supposed to tussle for the tassel,” she said in her girlish voice. “Use your feet.”
Heughan caught sight of Rodrigues at the back of the room. He was shaking his head and had split his face with a huge grin.
You bastard, Roddy, thought Heughan.
It was the most ridiculous sport he had ever undertaken, trying to stop two women from kicking him in the groin by fending them off with his feet. Melisande in particular was determined to find her mark and had hoisted her skirts up the better able to lash out at him. She had a way of flicking her toes that had Heughan jumping backwards with alarums. Phillice giggled wildly and was so overcome that she could hardly breathe to dance. The music drove faster and faster, and just when Heughan was seriously considering that he would put Melisande over his knee and spank her roundly if she didn’t jack it in, abruptly the final chord sounded and they were bowing to each other with tremendous civility.
Melisande was a picture of doe-eyed innocence as she curtseyed to him and escorted an over-excited Phillice from the floor and over to Ross, trying as she did so to persuade her to let out her stays a little until she caught her breath.
Heughan was dripping with sweat and leaned on the wall to steady himself. “What the fuck was that all about?” he asked a laughing Rodrigues.
“I’d say that was foreplay,” answered Rodrigues, handing Heughan his sword and dragging him to their places at table.
An expectant hush filled the room as the tall cleric rose to speak. He addres
sed them all briefly, bearing the sad news that His Highness, King James, regretfully would not be joining them due to an injury sustained in the day’s hunting, but bade them to enjoy the dinner all the same and drink to his swift return to health. He thanked Ross as their gracious host, said grace and sat down to eat.
The company cheered loudly for the king and toasted His Majesty’s health.
Heughan was nonplussed. He looked enquiringly at Rodrigues, who just shook his head and whispered, “Not now.”
Heughan turned his attention to his food but his thoughts were spinning off in all directions as he considered various possibilities, and he found he had little appetite, which must have angered the cooks mightily. Ross had certainly prepared a feast fit for a king. It was just a great disappointment that one wasn’t in attendance, though from the gusto with which the other guests fell to the feast, clearly Heughan was in a minority of one.
When the candied fruits, gilded gingerbreads and marchpane appeared, there was a brief commotion. Someone had contrived to form the gingerbreads into the shape of oversized gold coins. Ross threw them out to the tables, where eager diners scurried to catch them as though they were the real thing. Not until the tables were pushed back and the dancing resumed did Heughan judged it safe to continue his conversation with Rodrigues, who had been silently contemplating the angel on the gingerbread coin held in his fingers.
“Is this just another Truce Day ruse? Where’s the king? Howard was supposed to provide information about the royal progress. What am I supposed to do now?”
Rodrigues shook off his questions. “Melisande has been in close conversation with His Majesty’s emissary this whole time. She might be able to tell us something.”
Heughan looked at the high table, where Melisande sat next to the tall stranger. She was talking animatedly and her companion was smiling obligingly. His gaze, however, never left the room, and Heughan was reminded of a cat stalking mice.
“Who is he?” he asked Rodrigues.